Fireworks

In terms of harm, fireworks are very low down on the list of priorities to ban.  In 2017 there were 1,710 deaths in road accidents and there were 176,500 casualties of all severities.  Source: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/reported-road-casualties-great-britain-provisional-estimates-april-to-june-2017. 

In comparison, in 2015/16 St. John's Ambulance reported that 4,506 people visited A&E from 2014-2015 for treatment of a fireworks-related injury.  They don't mention any fatalities and I think they would be keen to note such if they had happened, so I think we can tentatively put the fatality figure at 0.  Source: https://www.sja.org.uk/sja/what-we-do/latest-news/firework-related-injuries.aspx.  

So it seems that fireworks cause approximately 2.6% of the casualties of motor vehicles.

Plus motor vehicles are often very noisy and disturbing at all times of the night and day and my experience is that this is much more frequently than with fireworks.

And if we're talking about banning things because of noise, and quality of life impact, then since I live under the Heathrow flight-path I'd much rather we talked about banning aircraft than fireworks.

But the take home is, if you really care about human and animal suffering, ban motor vehicles not fireworks because you'll have a much greater impact.

With respect, Windscale, fireworks and motor vehicles are of an entirely different order of things.  Motor vehicles, as much as they cause a lot of damage to life and to the environment, serve an entirely different purpose.  We couldn't get to where we want to go (including transporting sick people to A and E departments)  or have our vital supplies delivered to us, by fireworks.  These are a form of entertainment and spectacle, not an essential part of our our societal infrastructure.  Which isn't to say that I don't agree with you that motor vehicles cause a lot of damage.  But we could stop using fireworks without changing as much about society and it's functioning as we would if we stopped using motor vehicles.

Here's a video which many, I warn, may find very disturbing - so don't watch if you're easily upset...

The effect that fireworks can have on a dog.

With respect, Windscale, fireworks and motor vehicles are of an entirely different order of things.  Motor vehicles, as much as they cause a lot of damage to life and to the environment, serve an entirely different purpose.  We couldn't get to where we want to go (including transporting sick people to A and E departments)  or have our vital supplies delivered to us, by fireworks.  These are a form of entertainment and spectacle, not an essential part of our our societal infrastructure.  Which isn't to say that I don't agree with you that motor vehicles cause a lot of damage.  But we could stop using fireworks without changing as much about society and it's functioning as we would if we stopped using motor vehicles.

Here's a video which many, I warn, may find very disturbing - so don't watch if you're easily upset...

The effect that fireworks can have on a dog.

Yes the meat eating thing is interesting.  I'm personally OK with the farming of livestock for meat consumption, as long as the animals are well treated and slaughtered with reasonable humanity and there's no unnecessary suffering.  I'm also keen that we try and make full use of the animal as much as possible so that we're not wasting anything that it has given us.

My rationalisation is that we're an omnivorous animal and we've evolved eating and to eat meat.  Therefore I don't think we can say eating meat is wrong, since if we hadn't we as a species quite likely wouldn't be here!  Of course, I know some people have a difficulty with eating meat and choose not to.  I respect that opinion and their choice if they are acting on the basis of their own freely arrived at principles.  But I'd also hope they would respect my opinion and my choice which I've arrived at on the basis of my own freely arrived at principles.

In terms of the environmental impact of industrial scale livestock farming, I appreciate the likely impact.  But I don't think the livestock farming is the root cause of the problem.  As indeed many of the other things that appear to be driving wide-scale environmental changes are not the root causes either.  The problem I think is, that the things that are the root cause of the problem aren't willing to sort themselves out somehow so that they are no longer the root cause of a problem.

You don't have to.  I lost my childhood pet to a car.  I won't dwell too long on the moral philosophy of it all - and I do take your point.  I think I have a pretty healthy perception of right and wrong, and I adjust those things on a daily basis by a consideration of all kinds of factors - like access to new information.  I'm a Green, politically - which means that at the same time as wanting society to move towards more sustainable, cleaner and safer forms of transport, I have to accept that, because of the way society is currently structured, a very gradualist approach to that is the only thing we can hope for for the foreseeable future.

My point really was that I think it's a bit of a false comparison you're making.  Fireworks aren't vital to society, however you wish to argue it.  They do damage - maybe a fraction of the damage other things cause - but they do damage.  So we have to weigh up whether the damage they cause is acceptable in terms of the amount of pleasure they give.  Most things we do in life involve that weighing up: eating, drinking, smoking, drug-taking, etc.  I may be doing my internal organs untold damage by drinking a bit heavily at times.  I have to weigh that against the effect that alcohol brings - the highs, the laughter, the temporary freedom from anxiety... and the hangovers, headaches and sickness as well.

Lots of barely necessary things do damage.  Plastic waste, say, generated by festivals like Hallowe'en.  But motor transport, no matter how damaging it is, isn't something frivolous like that.  You can't just ban it and expect society as it is to continue operating as it is.  And that's basically what I was responding to in what you said:

Windscale said:

if you really care about human and animal suffering, ban motor vehicles not fireworks because you'll have a much greater impact.

You're absolutely right, of course.  But fireworks are things that are more easily dealt with.  That's the point I was trying to make.

Actually, if you really care about animal suffering, a ban that is much more realistically achievable - and that, given climate change and the rise in global temperatures, is becoming urgently necessary - is on meat-eating.  Look at the damage (and suffering) that global livestock rearing for meat consumption causes.  That genuinely is horrific. And it can be stopped without disrupting society in quite so drastic a way as banning motor vehicles.  Which isn't, by any means, meant to diminish the devastating impact of motor vehicles on society - and human and animal suffering.

I won't show you a picture of the effect that a motor vehicle can have if it hits a dog (or any other pet or animal).

My suggestion is that you have a good long think about your perceptions of right and wrong and what's socially acceptable and unacceptable.  Basically what you're saying is that you accept that something causes much greater harm, but that harm is socially acceptable to you because you find it convenient. Another thing however, that causes relatively little harm, but which shares lots of the same characteristics - loud noise, bright lights etc. is not acceptable, because you happen to find the harm that causes somehow "more harmful", despite being of obviously much lower magnitude, because you don't agree with it's social usages.